


The Last Picture Show

by ninjamonkey73



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninjamonkey73/pseuds/ninjamonkey73
Summary: “Let’s say, hypothetically, that I know a guy who knows a guy who could hook us up with some movie-style popcorn. Perhaps some of the last of its kind.”
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	The Last Picture Show

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was “going to the movies”. I chose not to go pre-mini with it, largely to ensure I could get Kara and Lee in a “theater” alone.

“Am I interrupting something, Starbuck?” Lee did nothing to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he stood at the podium in the Pilot’s Ready Room, already over an hour into morning briefing. He’d allowed her running commentary over his presentation to go on longer than he should have, he knew, but he just wanted to finish the damn maintenance review and be done with it.

A smirk played at the corner of Kara’s mouth as she barked, “No, sir. My boredom has been completely uninterrupted for over an hour. Sir.”

Laughter bounced around the room and Lee sighed, closing the maintenance binder. “Fine, I give up. Skids up in 30 minutes, anyway. Dismissed. Except you, Starbuck.”

A couple of pilots _oohed_ on the way out and Kara waved them off, her face a mockery of contrition. As the last one left, Lee shut the hatch. “You want to tell me what’s up with you, Kara?” He sat heavily in the chair beside her.

Kara rocketed up out of her seat and spun on him. “Seriously, Lee?! I’m insubordinate in front of everyone and you go all ‘what’s up with you, Kara?’”

He scrubbed his hands down his face. “Damn it, Kara,” he said softly. “What do you want from me? You sure as hell don’t treat me like your boss in public and now you want me to, what? Reprimand you in private?”

She dropped back down into her seat and stared straight ahead, letting the silence drag on. Lee watched her on the edge of his peripheral vision, trying not to spook her again by pushing. She’d been so out of sorts lately that he was actually a little relieved she’d given him a hard time during the briefing.

Truth be told, _he_ was bored by his presentation, too, but every pilot needed to recertify in routine maintenance once a year, and a decent number of them were up in a week. Sure, there was nothing new in the post-attack world of Viper and Raptor maintenance -- no new upgrades, no new models, no new tools -- but the regs said you had to recert, so he was damn well going to go over it all. He couldn’t afford to lose a pilot to a failed exam, even if they could retest.

When he realized Kara was staring at him, he shifted uncomfortably, returning from his mental wander. “What?”

“I don’t know,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You don’t know?” he said slowly, trying to figure out if he’d missed part of the conversation.

Kara slumped down in the chair and studied the ceiling tiles. “Your question. I don’t know what’s up with me.”

“Oh. Right.” Lee matched her posture and closed his eyes, head pressed back against the seat. “I’ve been feeling a little cooped up, myself. ‘Nowhere else to go’ is getting old. If I’m not sitting in my Viper, or sleeping in my rack, or in here, I’m in the gym. We could all use a night on the town,” he added wryly, turning in his seat to face her.

Kara smiled. “If you could find us a town to have a night on, they’d elect you President of the Twelve Colonies.”

He raised an eyebrow at the thought and nodded. “I can see the look on Baltar’s face now. President Adama. I could get used to it.”

Her fist slammed into his upper arm, breaking his moment of reverie and making him abruptly sit up straighter. “Ow!”

She shook out her fist with a characteristic Starbuck cackle and then looked suddenly serious. “I miss being able to go for a run outside,” she said softly. “The air’s not right in here. Makes me feel caged.”

“So say we all.” Lee’s mind spun with all the things he missed. Fresh air, swimming in the ocean, chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven, and a host of other things he’d taken for granted before the Cylon attacks. Sinking back down into the chair and letting his eyes lose focus, he thought about all the things he’d probably never have again. “Movie theater popcorn. Now _that_ would hit the spot right about now.”

Kara glanced at him out of the corner of her eye without raising her head from the seat back, a coy smile drawing his attention to her lips for a beat too long. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that I know a guy who knows a guy who could hook us up with some movie-style popcorn. Perhaps some of the last of its kind. Make me an offer.”

His first reaction was to ask who, and how there even still was any to be had, but he stifled the urge and thought for a moment. Surely, somewhere in the fleet, there were copies of movies. Several ships in the fleet were passenger liners, after all. He rose slowly, straightening his jacket, and smiled conspiratorially down at her. “Meet me in the film room one hour after CAP. Bring the popcorn.”

Kara sat up and snapped off a crisp salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

~~

Lost in thought as he walked through the corridors of Galactica, Lee wasn’t sure how he was going to get his hands on a movie in seven hours, even if he knew where to find one. It wasn’t like he could openly ask around for one without people pressing him for a reason. And there was no way he was going to share any popcorn Kara could procure with anyone else. Besides, the thought of sharing popcorn and a movie alone with Kara had lightened his mood. Even the CAG needed something of his own now and then.

He froze mid-step with a flash of inspiration and then spun on his heel to head for the personnel records room. A quick search on the lone terminal in the room gave him just what he needed – a deck specialist who’d previously been busted for dealing on the black market. Procuring a movie should be small potatoes for someone like that.

Much to Lee’s surprise, it only cost him a bottle of whiskey (which he happened to have on hand from his last Triad winnings). By the time he landed six hours later, a copy of “Warriors of Leonis” was wrapped in brown paper on his bunk with a note. _This was the best I could do on short notice._ Of all the movies that could be left in the universe, what were the odds he would end up with a copy of one he, Zak, and Kara used to watch when they were drinking and had nothing better to do? Kara would probably think he’d gotten the campy period piece on purpose. Maybe the black market wasn’t so bad, after all.

Wanting to keep the movie a surprise, he tucked the case under his pillow and gathered his kit and BDUs, for a quick shower before their _appointment_. It certainly wasn’t a date, he assured himself. As he passed the mirror in the head, he shook off the goofy grin he hadn’t realized was on his face and repeated to himself, _it’s just a movie with Kara_. Doing something out of the ordinary improved his mood more than he expected, and he was surprised to notice he felt less anxious and cooped up than he had when he got up that morning.

Showered and shaved, Lee retrieved the movie and the half-bottle of whiskey left in his locker and headed to the film room to get ready. When Kara arrived a few minutes early, he was already sitting in a front seat with the movie paused at the opening titles. He rose a little too quickly, caught off guard by her arrival, and laughed to himself as he eyed the giant duffel bag in her hand. “That’s not inconspicuous,” he said with a smile.

She shrugged, carefully sliding the bag across the floor to stop at his feet. “The alternative was to carry a steaming bowl of popcorn all the way here from the kitchen two decks down.”

He unzipped the bag and the room immediately filled with the smell of hot, buttery popcorn. “Oh, gods. You certainly came through. I don’t want to know how.”

Kara laughed and sat down beside him. She gestured toward the screen and said, “ _Warriors of Leonis_ , huh? That brings back some memories.” Her eyes drifted for a moment, lost in thought, no doubt involving Zak, before they focused back on Lee. “And I see you brought a pittance of alcohol. Good thing I came better prepared than you. This movie is better drunk, as I recall.”

They settled more comfortably into their seats, large glasses of whiskey on their outer armrests and the bowl of popcorn resting in Kara’s lap where she insisted it remain, and Lee started the movie, dropping the remote onto the seat next to him. The popcorn didn’t last much past the second scene, but it was just as he had remembered. He savored every greasy and salty bite, knowing it might be the last time he ever tasted it again. It was a sobering thought, but he shook it off. As the movie played, they joked and absently refilled each other’s glasses and quoted lines with the characters on screen.

About halfway through the movie, Kara chuckled to herself and suddenly dropped a hand on Lee’s knee. “Do you trust me?”

The question came from nowhere, and she didn’t seem overly serious, but he’d had just enough to drink to be thrown off balance by the question. “Kara, you know I--”

She cut him off with a wave of her other hand and slid the hand on his knee a couple of inches further up his leg. She repeated the question more slowly, with deliberate emphasis, as if he should get something more out of the question. “Do you trust me?”

He squinted at her a moment, then it dawned on him what she was doing. What were they, teenagers? “Ha ha. Very funny.”

Her hand slid up his thigh another inch. “Do you trust me?” Her eyes were glinting in the light from the projector, but it was a little too dark for him to make out her intent - whether she was messing with him or not.

“Kara, come on.” He caught her hand in his and held it still.

She pouted at him. “You wound me, Leland. You don’t trust me.”

Lee sighed heavily. “You know I do. With my life. I just don’t know what you think you’re doing here. We’re not 17 year-olds.”

“Trust me,” she purred.

With a shrug, he removed his hand from hers and tossed back the last of the drink in his glass. “Oh, why the hell not. I trust you. Happy now?”

“How ‘bout now?” she asked, her hand inching further still up his leg, coming to rest mid-thigh.

He swallowed hard when her fingertips brushed the inseam of his pants. There was nowhere good this game could go, but the tiny part of his brain that wanted to slam on the brakes got quieter and quieter the higher her hand drifted. “Uh-huh.”

She dragged her hand another inch up his leg. “And now?”

“Mm-hmm.” Lee’s eyes slipped shut and he rested his head on the back of the seat, every bit of his willpower focused on keeping his libido in check in case she was only trying to get a rise out of him, literally and figuratively.

A throaty laugh vibrated down her arm, traveling up his thigh. “I see.” She slid her hand very slowly along the remaining length of his leg, stopping just short of his crotch. She paused a beat, then pushed her fingers down between his inner thighs, grabbing the inside of his leg more firmly on the sensitive flesh. “Do you still trust me?”

The quiet moan escaped his lips before he could stop it. To his dismay, he opened his eyes to find Kara eying his unmistakable arousal with a dark, unreadable look in her eyes. “Kara, please.”

“That answers that question,” she murmured and crawled onto his lap, nipping at his bottom lip as she kissed him more gently than he expected.

Grasping for the self-control to break away, he pushed her back an inch and asked lamely, “But what about the movie?”

Kara leaned across him and snatched up the remote, pausing the movie by shooting the remote blindly over her shoulder. “It’ll wait.” She captured his mouth again, more forcefully this time, and with more obvious intent.

Lee returned her kisses with the same fervor, all the while protesting between kisses, “We. Shouldn’t. Do. This.”

She laughed and ran a hand down his chest and into his lap. “Your mouth says one thing, but your body says another. Shut up, Apollo.”

“At least lock the hatch, for the gods’ sake,” he breathed.

“Did it on the way in,” she breathed, trailing hot kisses down his neck to bite gently at his racing pulse there. “Let’s just say I didn’t plan on sharing my popcorn without… adequate… compensation.”

Lee laughed and grabbed the remote from her hand, shutting the screen off entirely. “I’d rather not have Gaius Spartanus watch, then.” He threaded his hands into her hair and decided not to think about why they shouldn’t, at least for a little while.

“Shame,” she sighed. “He could use some pointers. And I like an audience.”


End file.
